Nov. 14, 2013

Written by

Detroit Free Press Sports Writer

The big moment for Michigan football comes at noon today, when Woodbridge, Va., defensive end Da’Shawn Hand, ranked the No. 1 recruit in the nation, announces his college commitment.

The Wolverines are a finalist, along with Alabama and Florida, and no one is quite sure what he’s going to say.

Hand is scheduled to make his pick on the NBC Sports Network at noon. U-M coach Brady Hoke was asked this morning on the “Stoney and Bill” show on WXYT-FM (97.1) about when he’ll find out Hand’s choice.

“I would really love to answer that, but I’m not allowed to, according to NCAA rules,” Hoke said. “I know that it is a big day.”

Does he usually find out about recruits before their public announcements?

“I think it’s hit and miss,” Hoke said.

Hoke touched on a few other topics today, too:

■ On the outcry about consecutive runs up the middle after Nebraska muffed a punt last Saturday. The Wolverines had to settle for a field goal: “I understand that, we understand that. That’s a part of it. Obviously, we thought we had a couple things we thought would work a little better; we had made some adjustments to it, and it just didn’t work out that way. The one thing about competition, there’s always another competitor there. They’re going to make their plays when they need to, and we’ve got to make more plays than we’re making at this point.”

■ On whether he responds to hate mail: “I do. But I don’t tweet or anything like that and I don’t have email. I just never have. I’ll write the ones back and I thank them for their passion. You get those things because people love Michigan and sometimes they don’t realize you have the same passion or you wouldn’t be the Michigan coach. The one thing is, how do you have time in the day to write something like that?”

■ On the offensive line being so young: “They get a lot of the hits, some of it justified, some of it not. It’s on us, ultimately, as coaches. Experience in anything — remember when you went to get your license and the first time you had to drive. … The more you dos something, the better you get at it. That’s one of those things, the more they see the looks, the speed —we’ve got pretty good competition the last two weeks, look at the defenses we played. That’s part of it. But that’s not an excuse, because we have high expectations.”